


Chasing Fever Dreams

by ashcat



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Masturbation, Merry Month of Masturbation Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-05
Updated: 2010-05-05
Packaged: 2017-10-09 07:44:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashcat/pseuds/ashcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bryce is never alone because he always has his memories of Chuck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chasing Fever Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank you to afiawri and hoosierbitch for their beta and hand holding! :)

Bryce groans as he pulls his belt tighter around his thigh, slowing the bleeding. It is a mercifully clean shot, the bullet having missed the bone and vital arteries as it punched through his upper thigh. However, that doesn't stop him from feeling like someone is repeatedly stabbing him with a hot poker when he's sitting still; he can forget trying to stand. He's stuck in this hotel room, waiting for nightfall and maybe for a miracle. He needed to be in good enough shape to outsmart and out maneuver the assassins who are currently looking for him and the data he stole. Once he's done that, he will have to sneak across the Dominican Republic border in order to meet up with Sarah. Things definitely could be going a lot smoother, but he's gotten out of worse jams. Bryce knows he'll figure something out. If only he wasn't so damn hot, that would make it easier to think.

Haiti was never pleasant, any time of the year, but being here now during the rainy season just made it a wet as well as hot, tropical hell hole. Bryce tries to form a plan but every time he shifts, it's like he's being electrocuted, pain shooting down his leg all the way into his toes. He splits his time between staying conscious through the agony of flushing his wound with water and a bit of brandy from his pack, and more domestic tasks such as purifying water and fighting with the generator to keep the ancient metal fan going. He's roasting in his room with the windows shut, the fan is his only option to circulate the humid, stifling air.

For now, he is without any of his usual high tech spy gadgetry. Once he's ambulatory again, he'll steal a car battery to charge his cell and micro-pc, get the sat link up and running so that he can transmit the data he got shot stealing. But for now, he's just focusing on getting through the next 24 hours. His leg is throbbing, beating in time with his heart. Bright red blood spots are blooming across the white cotton of his makeshift bandage. Bryce becomes concerned when he only continues to feel hotter, sweat slicking both his chest and back, despite the sun going down outside. The temperature should be dropping, yet he feels like he's on fire.

When he starts thinking about his time in college with Chuck, he isn't sure if it's a memory or hallucination. He decides he'll take either since seeing Chuck's warm, clueless smile brings him a measure of relief. As he shifts, taking small sips of water to combat the fluids his body is losing, he finds that his mind is filled with Chuck. It makes it easier for him to forget the burning hole in his leg and instead focus on the ache in his heart, the feelings that still exist despite how deeply he has buried them. At least with Chuck here, Bryce isn't alone.

Bryce had originally thought being an excellent spy meant you didn't have emotions, at least not any that weren't wielded as weapons on your missions. He thought that you had to cut out every soft and weak part of yourself until you were left with nothing but the cold hard logical portion of your mind. A person with intellect reigning supreme, no emotions to hold it back. Now, four years into the business, he has seen that type of spy and he never wants to become _that_. Not someone who can easily break the neck of a crying three year old to maintain cover or torture wives, sons, and daughters in pursuit of accomplishing an objective at any cost.

Chuck, whom Bryce had once considered his greatest weakness, is his greatest source of strength in the fight to retain his humanity. Bryce has nurtured the feelings that he still has, the ones that he locked away when he pushed Chuck away. He keeps them compartmentalized so that they don't interfere with his work, except for when they _should_. They are there to remind him that while Chuck might be horrified by some of the things he's done, there is a line Bryce won't cross because he knows that on the other side of it is a Bryce that Chuck wouldn't be able to even stomach looking at. Despite his reluctance to even admit it to himself, Bryce wants to be a man that Chuck could one day find it in his heart to forgive. That one day Chuck could once again see him as a friend, that he could perhaps find it in his heart to love Bryce too.

Bryce knows that flights of fancy can get an agent killed. He's seen men get caught up in their regrets, that have thought too much about what might have been or mourned lost loves. That dulls your edge, makes you a second too late on the trigger. Bryce wants to be the best CIA agent he can be. But he always wants to do so without sacrificing all of his former self, the guy that had learned Klingon so that he could share something special and private with the clueless boy that he had fallen in love with.

He has never regretted keeping Chuck close to him during those three blissful years at Stanford. Chuck, who let his emotions and feelings rule him, cared so freely and easily for his friends. Bryce had been blown away by Chuck's sheer openness, by his good will towards not only other 'good' people, but Bryce, too. Chuck's easy acceptance of Bryce, not CIA Officer 578067 as his dogtags name him, will never be repeated in his brief life. And he is so damn grateful that Chuck gave him the courage and space to be his true self during the course of their friendship; to let his masks of star athlete, brilliant student, and aloof hunk all fall away. Chuck had seen through him to his ugly core and still had wanted to be his best friend. Bryce's _love_ that he still feels for Chuck has warmed him while trapped for three months in a Siberian prison and comforted him during the worst parts of his battle with dengue fever on a miserable mission in Bolivia.

And if he is being that honest with himself, Bryce would also have to say that he is glad he never slept with Chuck, never told Chuck his feelings. Because then Bryce would have tainted him, his dark, black moods would have diluted Chuck's glass-half-full view of the world. Bryce would then have had to devote a lot more thought to the offer of becoming a CIA agent. He'd have had to consider Chuck waiting for him in his bed, worrying about if Bryce was safe that night. He would have regretted the pieces of himself he knows he's lost along the way. Lost when he first had to kill a man, a woman; when he first had to leave behind a colleague, and worse when he had had to shoot a partner to secure the objective.

Bryce knows he made the right decision to push Chuck away... but sometimes he can't help but think about how things might have been. That in an alternate universe somewhere, when Bryce had woken Chuck with a moan he was unable to stifle, if things had worked out differently. The room had been stifling in August, Bryce was laying on top of his covers, stripped to his boxers, with his cock standing at attention outside of his fly. He had felt so desperate in the wake of having Chuck back with him again, after the separation of summer, and now he was allowed to feast his gaze on his love once more. He hadn't been able to hold back stroking himself. He was staring fixedly at that one wayward curl that was plastered to Chuck's temple.

Then Chuck's eyes popped open, his hazel locking with Bryce's blue, and in that moment Bryce knew he had been caught. There was no way that Chuck hadn't realized that Bryce was masturbating while watching him sleep. There was no way Chuck had missed the longing and _hunger_ in Bryce's gaze. Instead of screaming curses at Bryce, ordering him to get out or fleeing himself; Chuck had simply shut his eyes and rolled over. They had never mentioned the incident. To Bryce's immense relief, things had blown over in a week or so despite Chuck initially acting a little strange.

However, now when Bryce imagines the incident, he creates his own alternate reality. In that universe, Chuck smiles instead of rolling over, slides out of bed. He boldly crosses the room, affording Bryce a delicious look at Chuck's alabaster chest, sparse hairs across his pecs and the start of a happy trail down into his boxers. That was a trail Bryce had dreamed about tracing, with his fingers and tongue, dreamed about seeing _all_ of Chuck for the three years they were roommates. Bryce continues staring as Chuck crosses over to him, hand still loosely wrapped around his hard cock. Chuck leans down to gently brush his slightly chapped lips across Bryce's. He climbs onto the bed, and gently takes Bryce's cock from his hand and stroked it, pulling on it as gently and surely as Bryce had always dreamed he would.

In that alternative universe, Bryce would have said no when Professor Flemming approached him about joining the CIA. He would have continued studying at Stanford on his gymnastics scholarship, putting his flexible well toned body to good use pleasing Chuck every night. He would have gotten his CPA and become an accountant. He'd have went to work at a middle sized firm, and been promoted into corporate management. Chuck would have gotten a Ph.D. and become rich running his own dot.com start up related to his research into virtual reality for gaming applications. They would still be disgustingly happy even as they grew older. They'd have had a modest home, a dog named Bones for Chuck and a cat named Data for Bryce. They'd take Ellie's kids on trips to the zoo and park, being beloved uncles to them. They could have lived their lives in queer married bliss.

Bryce gets lost in his alternate reality, pain a distant memory. He just feels so hot, the feeling of fever raging in his system. He isn't alert enough to realize the warning signs as his stops sweating. He becomes so lethargic that he isn't even sipping at his purified water. And he's completely unconscious when Sarah comes to his rescue.

Bryce wakes up in the ship's infirmary, mind hazy with pain killers, disoriented. He quickly scans his surroundings, looking for Chuck, but only finding Sarah dozing in a chair by his bed. Harsh reality settles in: mission, shot, rescued. As Sarah begins to stir Bryce fixes in his mind that he needs to be thankful towards her for saving his life; even if a part of him wants to curse her. He musters his resolve and begins packing up the memories of Chuck, putting them back into that strong box where he keeps his feelings. He steels his heart to once again push Chuck and dreams of a different life away.

It's time to be CIA Agent Bryce Larkin again.


End file.
